The Tale of King Mu, Son of Heaven, the written originals of
the fantasy biography of King Mu and a biography of his mother, are part of
the Bamboo Annals found during the Western Jin dynasty.
Most of these bamboo books were lost in the Song Dynasty, but the academic value of these books has long been valued by the academic circles. From the Jin Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty, Guo Pu, Hong Yixuan, Zhai Yunsheng, Tan Cui, Hao Yixing, Jin Rongjing, sun Yirang and other scholars have done a lot of textual proofreading and annotation work on this masterpiece, which has laid a material foundation for the study of Mu Zhuan from the perspective of modern academic trend and multidisciplinary since the 20th century. During this period, due to a series of major issues such as the nature, authenticity and writing time of Mu Zhuan have been pending for a long time, and the method is too single and the field of vision is too narrow, the research on Mu Zhuan has not been carried out in an all-round way for quite a long time, and is only in the initial stage. Since the 21st century, the study of Mu Zhuan has been further expanded and deepened.
First, change to new perspectives and expansion into new areas. For example, Li Guoqing's Wang Xiantang and Huang's postscript the biography of King of Mu, Wang Huali's textual research on the song and Yuan editions of the biography of King of Mu, Zhang Yuanyun's Huang pilei's postscript in the biography of King of Mu, Liu Fuling and Yang Shuming's Tan Cui and notes on the biography of King of Mu, Liu Fuling and Wang Qizhou's probing into the time and way of the introduction of the biography of King of Mu into Japan, and the middle and late Ming Dynasty's biography of King of Mu The dissemination and acceptance of the biography of King of Mu: focusing on Wang Shizhen, Zhou shucan's the research of "Qiju in the mound of Huangtai" in the biography of King of Mu: also on the geographical problems of Zhou Muwang's eastward tour, Yang Wenwen's the evolution of the research paradigm of Queen Mother of the West since the late Qing Dynasty, etc., all have new topics and broad vision.
Second, the era and nature of Mu Zhuan and the study of its academic history continue to receive attention. Chang Jincang's biography of emperor Mu's time and document nature, based on the records of this paper, combined with the historical records and the latest archaeological results, puts forward 18 relatively strong evidences, proving that the biography of emperor Mu was written in the Warring States period and was the work of alchemists. Zhou shucan's research on the biography of King of Mu and Chen Liping's modern interpretation of the biography of King of Mu systematically combed and summarized the academic history of the biography of mu, which provided valuable reference for the promotion of the research on the biography of Mu under the new academic background.
Third, over the past 20 years, he has published Guo Kan's research on the text arrangement and related issues of the biography of King of Mu, Liu Rong's on the historical value of the biography of King of Mu, Gu Yefeng's research on the vocabulary of the biography of King of Mu, Yin Xingguo's research on the completion time, nature and value of the biography of King of Mu, Wang Haijing's research on the philology of the biography of King of Mu, and Cui Bingyang's research on the vocabulary of the biography of King of Mu The thesis on the study of Mu Zhuan, such as the research on the characteristics of travel notes, has continuously promoted the study of Mu Zhuan to a higher academic level. However, in the past 20 years, due to the influence of "going out of the age of doubting the ancient", there are still widespread tendencies of believing in the ancient and mud ancient in the study of Mu Zhuan. Some scholars still believe that Mu Zhuan is a work of the Western Zhou Dynasty, and some studies are still at a low level. All of these show that there is still a long way to go for the study of Mu Zhuan from a multi-disciplinary perspective.
Published on January 14, 2021